table laws, are produced and reproduced in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a mechanical necessity. The phænomena of man, are, in part, subjected to the laws of the external universe. As dependent upon a bodily organization, as actuated by sensual propensities and animal wants, he belongs to matter, and, in this respect, he is the slave of necessity. But what man holds of matter does not make up his personality. They are his, not he; man is not an organism, he is an intelligence served by organs. For in man there are tendencies, there is a law, which continually urge him to prove that he is more powerful than the nature by which he is surrounded and penetrated. He is conscious to himself of faculties not comprised in the chain of physical necessity, his intelligence reveals prescriptive principles of action, absolute and universal, in the Law of Duty, and a liberty capable of carrying that law into effect, in opposition to the solicitations, the impulsions of his material nature. From the coëxistence of these opposing forces in man there results a ceaseless struggle between physical necessity and moral liberty; in the language of Revelation, between the Flesh and the Spirit; and this struggle constitutes at once the distinctive character of humanity, and the essential condition of human development and virtue. In the facts of intelligence, we thus become aware of an order of existence diametrically in contrast to that displayed to us in the facts of the material universe. There is made known to us an order of things, in which intelligence, by recognizing the unconditional law of duty and an absolute obligation to fulfil it, recognizes its own possession of a liberty incompatible with a dependence upon fate, and of a power capable of resisting and conquering the counteraction of our animal nature. Consciousness of freedom, and of a law of duty, the conditions of Theology. Now, it is only as man is a free intelligence, a moral power, that he is created after the image of God, and it is only as a spark of divinity glows as the life of our life in us, that we can rationally believe in an Intelligent Creator and Moral Governor of the universe. For, let us suppose, that in man intelligence is the product of organization, that our consciousness of moral liberty is itself only an illusion; in short, that acts of volition are results of the same iron necessity which determines 1[" Mens cujusque, is est quisque; non ea figura, quæ digito demonstrari potest."- Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, c. 8-after Plato.] Cf the phænomena of matter, on this supposition, I say, the foundations of all religion, natural and revealed, are subverted.1 First condition of the proof of a Deity,drawn from Psychology. Analogy between our experience and the absolute order of existence. The truth of this will be best seen by applying the supposition of the two positions of theism previously stated-viz., that the notion of God necessarily supposes, 1o, That in the absolute order of existence intelligence should be first, that is, not itself the product of an unintelligent antecedent; and, 2°, That the universe should be governed not only by physical but by moral laws. Now, in regard to the former, how can we attempt to prove that the universe is the creation of a free original intelligence, against the counter-position of the atheist, that liberty is an illusion, and intelligence, or the adaptation of means to ends, only the product of a blind fate? As we know nothing of the absolute order of existence in itself, we can only attempt to infer its character from that of the particular order within the sphere of our experience, and as we can affirm naught of intelligence and its conditions, except what we may discover from the observation of our own minds, it is evident that we can only analogically carry out into the order of the universe the relation in which we find intelligence to stand in the order of the human constitution. If in man intelligence be a free power, in so far as its liberty extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter; and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence of an immaterial subject, -that is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence of intelligence on matter in the human constitution, in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man, be supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both the condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to infer, what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the establishment of the absolute priority of a free creative intelligence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of matter, only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not only afford no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on the contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying his existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the only intelligence of which we have any experience be a consequent of matter, on this hypothesis, he not only cannot assume this - Psychological Materialism its issue. 1 See Discussions, p. 623. -ED. order to be reversed in the relations of an intelligence beyond his observation, but, if he argue logically, he must positively conclude, that, as in man, so in the universe, the phænomena of intelligence or design are only in their last analysis the products of a brute necessity. Psychological materialism, if carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in theological atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry More, nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus. I do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny, or actually disbelieve, a God. For, in very many cases, this would be at once an unmerited compliment to their reasoning, and an unmerited reproach to their faith. Second condition of the proof of a Deity, drawn from Psychology. Such is the manifest dependence of our theology on our psychology in reference to the first condition of a Deity, the absolute priority of a free intelligence. But this is perhaps even more conspicuous in relation to the second, that the universe is governed not merely by physical but by moral laws, for God is only God inasmuch as he is the Moral Governor of a Moral World. Our interest also in its establishment is incomparably greater, for while a proof that the universe is the work of an omnipotent intelligence, gratifies only our speculative curiosity,—a proof that there is a holy legislator by whom goodness and felicity will be ultimately brought into accordance, is necessary to satisfy both our intellect and our heart. A God is, indeed, to us only of practical interest, inasmuch as he is the condition of our immortality. Now, it is self-evident, in the first place, that, if there be no moral world, there can be no moral governor of such a world; and, in the second, that we have, and can have, no ground on which to believe in the reality of a moral world, except in so far as we ourselves are moral agents. This being undeniable, it is further evident, that, should we ever be convinced that we are not moral agents, we should likewise be convinced that there exists no moral order in the universe, and no supreme intelligence by which that moral order is established, sustained, and regu lated. Theology is thus again wholly dependent on Psychology; for, with the proof of the moral nature of man, stands or falls the proof of the existence of a Deity. 1 Cf. Antidotus adversus Atheismum, lib. iii. c. 16, (Opera Omnia, vol. ii. p. 143, Londini, 1679); and the Author's Discussions, p. 788. -ED. Wherein the moral agency of man consists. Philosophy operates in three ways, in establishing assurance of human liberty. But in what does the character of man as a moral agent consist? Man is a moral agent only as he is accountable for his actions, in other words, as he is the object of praise or blame; and this he is, only inasmuch as he has prescribed to him a rule of duty, and as he is able to act, or not to act, in conformity with its precepts. The possibility of morality thus depends on the possibility of liberty; for if man be not a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and has, therefore, no responsibility, no moral personality at all. Now the study of Philosophy, or mental science, operates in three ways to establish that assurance of human liberty, which is necessary for a rational belief in our own moral nature, in a moral world, and in a moral ruler of that world. In the first place, an attentive consideration of the phænomena of mind is requisite in order to a luminous and distinct apprehension of liberty as a fact or datum of intelligence. For though, without philosophy, a natural conviction of free agency lives and works in the recesses of every human mind, it requires a process of philosophical thought to bring this conviction to clear consciousness and scientific certainty. In the second place, a profound philosophy is necessary to obviate the difficulties which meet us when we attempt to explain the possibility of this fact, and to prove that the datum of liberty is not a mere illusion. For though an unconquerable feeling compels us to recognize ourselves as accountable, and therefore free, agents, still, when we attempt to realize in thought how the fact of our liberty can be, we soon find that this altogether transcends our understanding, and that every effort to bring the fact of liberty within the compass of our conceptions, only results in the substitution in its place of some more or less disguised form of necessity. For, -if I may be allowed to use expressions which many of you cannot be supposed at present to understand, we are only able to conceive a thing, inasmuch as we conceive it under conditions; while the possibility of a free act supposes it to be an act which is not conditioned or determined. The tendency of a superficial philosophy is, therefore, to deny the fact of liberty, on the principle that what cannot be conceived is impossible. A deeper and more comprehensive study of the facts of mind overturns this conclusion, and disproves its foundation. It shows that, so far from the principle being true, that what is inconceivable is impossible, on the contrary, all that is conceivable is a mean be. - tween two contradictory extremes, both of which are inconceivable, but of which, as mutually repugnant, one or the other must be true. Thus philosophy, in demonstrating that the limits of thought are not to be assumed as the limits of possibility, while it admits the weakness of our discursive intellect, reëstablishes the authority of consciousness, and vindicates the veracity of our primitive convictions. It proves to us, from the very laws of mind, that while, we can never understand how any original datum of intelligence is possible, we have no reason from this inability to doubt that it is true. A learned ignorance is thus the end of philosophy, as it is the beginning of theology.1 In the third place, the study of mind is necessary to counterbalance and correct the influence of the study of matter; and this utility of Metaphysics rises in proportion to the progress of the natural sciences, and to the greater attention which they engross. Twofold evils of exclusive physical study. An exclusive devotion to physical pursuits, exerts an evil influence in two ways. In the first place, it diverts from all notice of the phænomena of moral liberty, which are revealed to us in the recesses of the human mind alone; and it disqualifies from appreciating the import of these phænomena, even if presented, by leaving uncultivated the finer power of psychological reflection, in the exclusive exercise of the faculties employed in the easier and more amusing observation of the external world. In the second place, by exhibiting merely the phænomena of matter and extension, it habituates us only to the contemplation of an order in which everything is determined by the laws of a blind or mechanical necessity. Now, what is the inevitable tendency of this one-sided and exclusive study? That the student becomes a materialist, if he speculate at all. For, in the first place, he is familiar with the obtrusive facts of necessity, and is unaccustomed to develop into consciousness the more recondite facts of liberty; he is, therefore, disposed to disbelieve in the existence of phænomena whose reality he may deny, and whose possibility he cannot understand. At the same time, the love of unity, and the philosophical presumption against the multiplication of essences, determine him to reject the assumption of a second, and that an hypothetical, substance, — ignorant as he is of the reasons by which that assumption is legitimated. In the infancy of science, this tendency of Physical study in its infancy not materializing. 1 See Discussions, p. 634. — ED. |